ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how one government comes to succeed another in revolutionary situations, with special reference to the guerrilla movements which pervaded Latin American politics from the Cuban revolution until the late 1960s, and which are experiencing a revival. Classic descriptions of the Latin American countryside described the prevailing pattern as one of “feudalism,” in which the landed elites became de facto the law on their rural estates. The most casual examination of the existing literature on landlordpeasant and government-peasant relations in Latin America reveals that government obligations—such as the defense and police functions—are regularly absent or even turned against poor cultivators. The joint pattern of a guerrilla promise of protection and welfare, plus the incumbent government’s terror against the peasantry, created a new government in the Sierra. Guerrillas in that role provided defense against the Rural Guard Corps and banished middlemen from the region, whom peasants viewed as exploiters.
